


just before sunrise

by rjosettes



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Ace Spec Cora Hale, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Aro Spec Allison Argent, Aromantic, Asexual Character, Asexuality, Domestic, Established Relationship, F/F, Fluff, Frottage, Sex, Trans Character, Trans Female Character, sensory processing disorder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-01
Updated: 2016-11-01
Packaged: 2018-08-28 09:58:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8441281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rjosettes/pseuds/rjosettes
Summary: Cora slips her fingers over the ripples in the sheets – one two three four, smooth waves – and tries to be patient with her brain as it processes the still-warm linen and empty space. She's the only person in the bed. The dim glow falling at her feet is still soft, just before sunrise. A loud, seeking groan slips through her lips as she rolls into several feet of unoccupied bed.





	

Cora slips her fingers over the ripples in the sheets – one two three four, smooth waves – and tries to be patient with her brain as it processes the still-warm linen and empty space. She's the only person in the bed. The dim glow falling at her feet is still soft, just before sunrise. A loud, seeking groan slips through her lips as she rolls into several feet of unoccupied bed.

“In a minute!” is the reply from the bathroom, bright and chipper despite being gentle. Allison knows just how to pitch her voice at this distance so it's not too much for Cora's ears. Just another little moment to be grateful for, even at not quite six in the morning on a Saturday. People who live together pick up on these things over time, of course, but Cora feels grateful for how deliberate it's been each step of the way with them. Allison is her best friend before anything else, and that's the way that both of them like it.

Allison pads into the bedroom on clean, damp feet, leaving behind perfect little imprints – footsteps, or shadows of footsteps. ”Morning.” Barely a whisper that skitters across her nerves pleasantly. Her toothbrush is waiting for her in Allison's hand, and the little pink basin that Erica provided from the dentist's office. Brushing her teeth is a sort of relief, her mouth no longer crawling with that furry feeling, fresh from the diluted mouthwash kept on the bedside table. And all without stepping onto the too-cold floor at this hour, the icy touch needle-sharp against the soft skin of her soles. The whole sequence had felt like torture when she was small and missing the words to explain why her complaints were different from her classmates who simply didn't want the chore of brushing their teeth before school.

“We need new curtains,” Cora says finally, when her own words seem to grind themselves into existence again. “It's not winter now.”

“We can try Home Depot,” Allison suggests, when she’s rinsed the basin and crawled back into bed. Even with the gap left between them in the queen-sized bed, her scent washes out over everything, sugary green apple shampoo and strong, spicy deodorant. She doesn’t  _ want _ to be reminded of her brother’s armpits, but sometimes it’s unavoidable. “They have blackout curtains. Supposed to completely block the sunlight out. For night shift people, I guess.” 

“And me.” The distance between them is easy to close, one lazy roll. She rests a finger against the skin between Allison’s tank top and sweats, thumbs nudging away the rough texture of the drawstring. She’s naked herself, minus the snug ladies’ cut boxer briefs that keep dysphoria in check on good days. “Did you run alone today?”

They chatter about the pack, Boyd’s dedication to his latest training routine and the run-in they’d had with Malia as she picked up doughnuts from the only place open this early. Both of them know that the words take a back seat to what’s happening just below, a roundabout trip to a place they like to go sometimes, when they’re both feeling up to it. 

Sex with Cora can be too intimate for Allison, sometimes, she knows. She rarely sleeps with even their mutual friends anymore, picking through apps to find suitable options. They veto anyone that wants to come to their place, but she’s not too picky, otherwise. Casual sex leaves her free of expectations, stripped of the creeping anxiety of not being enough. Cora doesn’t ask much of her, romantically at least, but she has enough experience with aversion to know it doesn’t always present itself in rational ways.

For what it’s worth, of all the ways they’ve had to whittle themselves down to fit together, this isn’t one of them. Cora loves her, of course - in every sense, and an almost alarming amount - but romantic gestures are still a mystery to her. Even Laura’s brisk, sisterly cheek kisses used to make her squirm, wiping off imagined spit with her sleeve. Sex, too, is complicated, some combination of sensory ick, discomfort with her body, and the sometimes elusive sense of her sexuality, or lack thereof. 

Allison smells aroused when she comes home from a run, a musky, hidden trace after she’s washed it away with her sweat in the shower. It’s probably more endorphins than anything, her body awake and alert, ready to be put to use. Cora’s fingers wander until the tank top bunches under her arms and her waistband creeps down her hips. Touching someone this way is deeply soothing, and Allison’s skin is smooth like the sheets but warm with life. Every time the pattern takes her fingers into the curve beneath Allison’s breast, she can feel the thump of a heartbeat.

For another pair, the next few moments might be passed in gestures and expressions, meaningful eye contact. Instead, Allison asks, plain and direct, before she lets the weight of her body settle over Cora’s, pressing her into the thick, cradling memory foam of the mattress. They kiss, soft and glancing, dry lips that press and part and start again. She’s felt Allison’s mouth wet against her throat, her sun-freckled shoulders, and all over the parts of her body that cry ‘yes’ some days rather than no, but never against her own mouth.

“Cooties,” Allison had teased her once, wiping stray saliva from Cora’s collarbone, nose adorably scrunched. That had been all, though, and she’s never tried to coax her tongue between Cora’s lips like some have tried before.

Beneath her sweats, Allison wears the same underwear as her girlfriend, heather grey and growing darker at the vee of her thighs where they straddle Cora’s. She slides her top off over her head, quick and efficient, so that Cora can find the sweet, clean skin of her back with searching fingertips - somewhere to touch, to ground herself.

This is the way that they fall together most naturally, more than the quiet morning routines and shared household chores. Before the searching for words and scrambling for understanding, this between them had been simplest - bodies pressed tight, blooming heat and the cloud of pleasant, hazy smells. Cora can't fall asleep with Allison’s arm over her side, but she dreams sweet all night when they wind up like this, like a secret combination clicking into place. She's no longer sleepy as the embrace moves from static to fluid, Allison rocking to find her own pleasure in this, her breath growing heavy. Cora can taste her cinnamon toothpaste even when they aren’t kissing, ghosting over her face, sometimes carried on a quiet moan.

She’s never been the best with faces, but the breathless almost-surprise in Allison’s when she comes is something she’s studied again and again, watched and kissed and felt beneath her fingers until it became more familiar than her own few common expressions. The body on top of her becomes barely more than dead weight and she soaks in the feeling, holding Allison tightly against her while she catches her breath, a faint sheen of sweat already starting back up at her hairline.

“Morning,” Cora echoes back at her, now that her day’s properly started, hoping Allison can hear a thousand inflections in the word, a dozen feelings and sentiments that she can’t or won’t share.

Allison giggles, and that seems like enough.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[podfic of] just before sunrise](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12841752) by [luvtheheaven](https://archiveofourown.org/users/luvtheheaven/pseuds/luvtheheaven)




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